Harvesters Scene Three Diane's Car

[Djinn]

The expression on Jodie's face as she read the journal said a lot, between relief, happiness and excitement. She tucked away the journal and moved to the front to pop the trunk of the car, even after she tucked the gun away, as well. Hopefully Tal wouldn't mind... her little pewpew wasn't going to be a lot of help here.

"Trunk," she stated to Tal in warning before pulling the lever to let it click into an unlocked mode. There was no saying what was in the trunk, but damnit they needed to be sure they kept an eye on everything. Checked thoroughly for hints. Once they got whatever, they could gather back up in the van and talk over phase two of the Adventures of the Ladies, but for the moment... gathering.

[Tal]

When they opened up the trunk they found...an old sweater and a blanket. Tal studied the blanket carefully, head tilted thoughtfully to the side, and then nodded, picking the blanket up and carefully rolling it into a tight bundle in the trunk. Once it was as compact as it could be she tucked it under her arm and then turned to Jodie, lowering her voice.

"Ok. You hang onto that. I'll hang onto the cash now that the car isn't secure. Help me gather it up?" She figured as long as kept transparent things would move faster. Besides, she wasn't a thief. She was good for the window and the cash, assuming they all got back to Santee breathing and free of handcuffs. Tal ducked back into the car and started gathering bills up, rifling into the bags and cups to assemble the bills. It was an interesting way to hide the money. Maybe she'd try something similar with the things she didn't want found.

"So, you find anything in the planner? I'm thinking we just wait for the others if you don't have any more ideas."

[Djinn]

"Sounds like a plan," she agreed as she slid open the door to the back of the van again and slid in, opening up the journal to read more carefully through it and to share some of the information with Tal.

"Book of Honorious from Riggan to Michael's cell. Honorious - Vampires and Malleus Malficium..." she read aloud to the woman, though she did that quietly. "Trade- one vial of 'Crocodile Tears' & $100 to Riggan for the Book of Honorious... to help Michael's cell with Vampires?" she stated as she looked up to Tal curiously, not sure what any of that even meant, really.

"Also there's something about the journal of a supposed Werewolf..." she trailed off quietly.

Diane had wanted to help her. And she was damn well going to return that favour, ghosts or not... for sure. Ghosts. Ugh. But there were some things more important. "Mister Smith had suggested we should try and check Diane's room," Jo sighed, shaking her head a little as she continued to flip through pages. "But I'm not sure I'm down with that. I've seen enough horror movies to know that sounds like a terrible idea. A woman goes missing from a room, theoretically... you don't send two more women in to investigate, for goodness sakes. What if whatever it is specifically hunts women, huh? Between the woman ghost, Diane's absence, and... I dunno, I haven't seen any other women out here anywhere..."

Was she a coward? Did it sound like she was scared? Was it wrong to be scared?

  failure, then 2sux to investigate the journal

Date		Action		Roll		Result
2014-07-14 23:07:25		Jodie Hollins rolls 5 to Investigate the Journal again! (Int+Investigation)(-1) (10 Again)		3, 5, 8, 5, 9		2 successes
2014-07-14 23:06:59		Jodie Hollins rolls 6 to Investigate the Journal! (Int+Investigation) (10 Again)		2, 7, 2, 1, 6, 7		failure

[Tal]

"There might be women. I don't know if Alistair's goggles are that precise," Tal said, glancing around suspiciously despite her words. "And the problem with the room isn't what we'll find inside. At least not now. It's getting inside. I think we'll have to have the boys talk the manager into giving us a key. These 'cops' will probably show up if we kick in the door," she explained, making air quotes to show just what she thought of the people that had apparently kidnapped Diane. Tal reached up and rubbed the back of her neck, looking around the motel lot again. Waiting was always the hardest part.

"Unless you think you can talk the manager into it? Might be kind of hard, now that you're armed."

[Seryna]

failure, then 2sux to investigate the journal
The Journal yields up... Djinn
The journal has been painstakingly kept from January 2014. Flipping through the pages, Diane is let in on the mundane details of Diane's life. She learns that she has 'Bible Study' at Bethel church every Sunday morning at 9 A.M. and Wednesday evening at 5 P.M. - 7 P.M. She learns of 'tactic practice' every other Monday evening. In the recent month, there are two notations about Michael. Two dates where she had met Michael at Bethel church for some reason. There is the BBQ marked with a smiley face.

Flicking through the notes, there are several hastily scribbled thoughts by some of the Monday practices.

'Alma attacks first, I hold the arms.' was the first notation in February. 'We've drove off our first V. ' was in March marked with six smiley faces. This month had several notes about Michael and a crossbow - prices of different crossbows, comparing prices of bolts and archery lessons. There was a google map printout of an isolated 'flying field' with the words 'crossbow practice' written on it.

The 'address book' part of the journal had dozens of names. Some - like'Redbird' - were clearly aliases. Yet there was a Royce. There was also a Paypal debit card clipped to the back of the journal. A checkbook ledger kept a careful log of an account. Diane had taken in some $300 income for June and some six tomes or journals 'in trade' in lieu of cash. There was a notation in May of an exchange of a pistol 'worth some $300' for a 'Blessed Sword'. She regularly made small red notations of outgoing bills - she paid three people - Royce, June and Tina -$20 a month paid on the first. $100 + %10 of her income was tithed to Bethel church, recorded on the 25th of every month.

[Djinn]

"I was armed before," she responded with a little shrug, "just with a much smaller weapon. I'll be honest, I don't know if there are more women, or if the others know of it, or anything like that. What I do know is I haven't seen any women, and I know that Diane - a woman - went missing," she sighed a bit as she soon handed the intinerary over to Tal, showing off a couple of the notes.

"The fact that no one came running when you busted in the car window, though, indicates to me that even though I feel like there are freaking eyes on me everywhere, people aren't paying all that much attention to things," Jo pointed out. She wanted to wait. She wanted the boys to get back before they went and investigated the room... but really, Diane's car hadn't given up much in terms of being proactive about this case... and who knew how much time Diane had?

"Let's at least check the door to see if it's locked. The window, too, because it may mean we don't have to worry about breaking anything open," she finally suggested. "In some of these small-town community type areas, people don't tend to think about locking stuff up the way we would in the city."

The brunette slipped out of the van again, moving to check the doorknob and window to see if either were locked. She didn't have anything to prove, here, what she did have was the life of a woman who'd been forthcoming about helping her to consider. That was more important than waiting around.

[Tal]

"One can always hope," Tal said, limping after Jodie towards Diane's room. She let the other woman check the room for entry and used the opportunity to glance around the area and see just how many sets of eyes might actually be on them, or if there was anything else worth noting. People might very well not be doing anything because they'd already called the dirty "cops" back to deal with them, and that would be a problem.

  4 successes to general perception of the area

Date		Action		Roll		Result
2014-07-15 18:24:22		Tal rolls 6 to perception (10 Again)		7, 2, 10, 10, 10, 4, 3, 8, 2		4 successes

[Seryna]

As Jodie checked the door, she found her earlier statement regarding small town communities to be accurate. The door knob turned easily in her hand. Opening the door, the two women were greeted with a cheap and low quality motel room. There was a queen sized bed with a rusty red bed spread in a slightly outdated octagon quilt pattern. The bed was neatly made and undisturbed. There was a white card table that had recently been wiped down, but no amount of tender love could remove years of coffee rings and slight stains from food over the years. The two cheap dinette chairs were overturned.

The first sign of foul play within this room. More clues could be within. You had heard a cell phone but that had quieted down now. The water somewhere hums. What do you do? Where are you looking?

As Tal glances around, she sees that Rest Stop man has returned to the porch of the restaurant. He is facing you and speaking to someone on a telephone. It's whats standing by his knee that truly captures the attention. A pair deep grey pit bulls sit beside the man, staring intently. As Tal looks at them, she gets a peculiar sensation that they are staring at her. Hating her with deep golden eyes staring balefully into her soul. Their ears perk in her direction, their bodies quivering. They wanted to run...
Cayce Djinn

[Djinn]

There were a lot of things Jo was paying attention to - outside was not one of them as her attentions focused on the inside of the room. She didn't touch anything, reaching into the same bag she'd tossed her boombits into to pull out a pair of gloves. They weren't exactly like what police would wear at a crime scene - they were a little thicker, some padding providing protection, and with grips on the outside. These were meant for handling explosives, primarily, but in this case it didn't seem like a bad idea to put them on, either, to avoid leaving fingerprints for 'crooked cops'...

Her first instinct was to seek out the phone, leaving her to dial Diane's number from her own phone and hold it up in searching, though it didn't stop her from carefully looking around without waiting for the ringing, either. She heard the running of water, as well, which piqued her curiousity, but a part of her was more focused on further signs of struggle, blood, or any indication of the direction things may have gone.

A small part of her kept a wary eye on reflective surfaces or mirrors in the area, enough reading and TV telling her that sometimes souls could get trapped in those things - photographs and mirrors... and her phone seemed to be proof enough of that to warrant the wariness.

  2sux Int+Investigation

Date		Action		Roll		Result
2014-07-15 19:34:11		Jodie Hollins rolls 6 to Int+Investigation (10 Again)		4, 9, 2, 9, 3, 6		2 successes

[Seryna]

The sound of the phone ringing fills the silent, empty shell of a motel room. Following the noise leads Jodie to the bathroom. There's a moment of confusion, but lifting the lid of the toilet tank reveals the cell phone resting on a ceramic ledge. There had been a clever bit of deception there. Checking the phone reveals three text messages from a 'Jamie'. No activity has occurred on the phone since the text to your cell ... thirty minutes ago. Diane has now been missing for thirty minutes.

The room seems devoid of any further signs of struggle besides the overturned chairs. No hairs rest on the pillows. No indentations that suggest any one had time to sit down. Although there was no purse... and you had seen no sign of one in the car that you had just searched. That was suggestive that some thing had happened to it. Yet Diane was not trussed up under the bed. For all intensive purposes, there was very little to go on here. It was almost too clean...
Cayce Djinn